Comments

Comment by Tetris

This is the 3rd major boss in Shadow Fang Keep. With a good group of level 20-25's you can get to him in about 15min. from start. When you enter the inner courtyard and clear that out you will see a door leading to a kitchen, clear that area out. He is located inside the keep, after you pass through the kitchen/dining area, head up the stairs and make a left. He is in the room with a lot of ghost, the ghost can be hard to see at first and have a wider agro range then the werewolves. Once you clear the entrance way into the room where he is located then you can pull him with 2 adds.

Comment by Lvl17sealion

I can solo this whole instance by myself at level 35 (Paladin) and I can say that he is the most challenging boss to face. Once you clear the whole room he has two guards that you can't hit without agroing him. I suggest killing the guards first so healing doesn't get interrupted that much. He heal bots himself like crazy, so it's a good idea to stun some of his heals cause his mana is pretty good too. Make sure to keep your health up and safe heal it and you should be fine. ALSO: When you get him to low enough health he'll bubble, so while he's bubbling it's a good idea to use bandages or heal up in any way.

Comment by Odios

This guy sheilds and heals like pallys do, he's easy to kill if you get rid of the two gaurds though.Assasin's blade dropped when i was running someone through the instance, it dropped off a mob just before you enter the room he is in.

Comment by satukie

He will be a level 20 elite in 2.3.

Comment by healmenow

i am just going to get a level 52 pally to run me through cause that axe looks so sick

Comment by temu92

I done this boss once like this, "boosted myself"

Invite your friend that can heal you and get he into this instance, my friend was lvl 13 druid.Then I cleared every mob in way on my main before this boss. I shut down my WoW using ALT + F4 hotkey (your group must not break) and logged in with my paladin about 20lvl. Then I just went to this boss and killed he using my friend help as "healer".

So if you have highlvl main and want to kill bosses here for your lower lvl alts, this is one good way to do it.

Comment by Miloscub

and btw whats THE easiest way to get here with a lvl 20 paladin?

Comment by DeathToTheWeak

Your party must be EXTREMELY careful in this section of the instance which contains all these "ghost humans". ALL CASTERS STAY BACK. They all spam an AoE silence that lasts 4 seconds and they do it very, very frequently. It's not uncommon for casters that are close to the figthing to be silenced for 10+ seconds, and unless your getting run through, it will be the end of your party. This rules applies all the way until you clear the outer wall section, with the ghost officers. Try to fight outside the room where Commander Springvale is, by pulling the ghosts into the hallway you just cleared.

Unfortunately, the silence affects even warriors and rogues, and i know for a fact that a warrior with the silence cant use any shouts or thunderclap.

Comment by Callyndra

4th boss (if you have cleared others) in SFK. He heals himself and bubbles, so becareful. I would suggest using CDs after his bubble, or else they might go to waste. To get to him, turn left after the dining room, and down the hallway(s). he has alot of adds in the room, so be sure to clear them all. His adds can also silence.

Comment by Drolidan

It´s 4th boss in Shadowfang Keep,using Paladin abilities. This encounter would be maybe hard,because elites and adds are using AoE silence that last for 4 seconds,used very frequently... It will kick all casters and healers from fight. Be careful with pulling elites in his room,to avoid fighting 4 silencing elites and Boss with next two elites....

Comment by ronko

Don't just run in the room.

There is a group of mobs that can be pulled before the boss+adds. Also watch out for the mob patrolling near the exit of the room. Usually wipes happen here because your group aggroes the whole room.

Comment by tibbsy

As mentioned above, the Guardsmen are ridiculously nasty to spell-casting classes, with their seemingly random but potentially chainable 4-second silences. For the room's trash I pulled them in pairs and was able to use Turn Evil to fear one while I dispatched the other. The boss, similarly, had one add and I was able to use Turn Evil on him as well! So if you want a 20 second breather during the fight (or you want to counter his heal), use that. Just make sure you're engaging him in an area where you can safely fear him without pulling extra mobs.

Comment by Sarge134

I found out that if you have (highly recamend A hunter/walock) with a tanking pet this room can be simple.1get the hunter or warlock to pull the people by the door down in the stairwell and finsh with group2 get in the room and when the main tank goes in send the tanking pet in to (so if the agro comes to fast the pet can die insted of the tank)3 clear the rest of the mobs in the room BE CAREFULL NOT TO PULL BOSS YET .If the boss get below i think 50% every one comes in4 kill boss

Comment by Skullhawk13

How can you shout if your silenced? o.O thats kinda logical that it would effect warriors

Comment by Demonist

Easy, easy boss. I easily tanked him at Level 18 as a Pally, with backup coming from a Rogue, Mage, and a Hunter and we killed him in less than 10 minutes (Maybe 8?), plus the "Arced War Axe" is an amazing axe! Trust me, when you use it, you'll mouth will drop open in disbelief.

Comment by Videobrain

Easy, easy boss. I easily tanked him at Level 18 as a Pally, with backup coming from a Rogue, Mage, and a Hunter and we killed him in less than 10 minutes (Maybe 8?), plus the "Arced War Axe" is an amazing axe! Trust me, when you use it, you'll mouth will drop open in disbelief.

Wow!8 minutes isnt that kind of long for an "EASY" boss?

Comment by rrred

The AoE silence can be avoided by, surprise surprise... backing away from the enemies that use it. Let your tank get aggro because one wrong move can mean an enemy with the silence ability runs across the room and stops the DPS/healer in his/her tracks.

Comment by Whitecat2242

Just a hopeful wish, I really want them to keep Arced war axe for heroic too, very few items in dungeons remain the same name/icon, so this would be a really cool item for a level 85 character and a level 16+ character to use,Double win!

Comment by Machar

He's not a faceroll anymore. Run out of the Desecrate and his frontal cone attack, or you may find yourself dying quickly.

Comment by Syncness

At time of writing, this boss is quite literally impossible on Heroic, regardless, I will post the 2 strats recommended.

// BurnBurn the boss, tank the adds, you can probably tank the desecrate, tank boss against wall.

The "intended" method is to kill adds then boss, but seems now it's very popular to drag the boss to the courtyard and simply tank and spank the boss as the adds no longer spawn.

Comment by AyaJulia

Far from impossible.

Use any CC you have that will let you focus on burning the boss --roots, ice traps, shackles, and even a clutch wyvern sting work well. Burn cooldowns at the beginning when you aren't otherwise occupied with the adds.

Comment by Brormona

not impossible use the old school method and he is fairly straight forward, just don;t let them get a heal off cause he gets a 20% dmg increase as well.

Comment by Stefanish

Ok hard, but not impossible. I'm a shadow priest and that made things a lot easier.

We just started by CC'in (Shackle Undead) one of the adds and DPSin down the other interrupting the Unholy thing, then kill the CC add. When the adds are dead DPS the boss till he calls for more adds, go to the stairs, CC one and kill the other then kill the CC, like at the beginning. At 20% we popped BL and burnt him down.

So the best strategy is: CC one kill + interrput the other kill the CCed DPS the BossRepeat

Comment by TheAmadaun

Having a shadowpriest makes this much, much easier.

Shackle an add, kill the other add, kill shackle, burn boss. Just repeat that over and over. We tanked him on his platform, with the tank pulling the boss from one side of the platform to the other to get out of Desecration, with the ranged at the other end of the room to avoid the breath attack (he seems to sometimes spin around when doing it, so just facing him away doesn't always cut it). Make sure DPS are interrupting the kill target and the fight is relatively smooth.

Comment by frogfool

You can skip this boss and kill the 2 after it and still get the achievement.

Comment by Nayvay

The strategy that worked for us was the following (SFK heroic)

Ranged stand on stairs, boss is tanked at other side of the room. The tank picks up the adds. The officer is prioritized over the guardsman, but both adds are nuked asap. This is done for two waves. The third wave is CC'd (shackle, turn evil, whatever) and the boss is nuked down. (destro lock, mage, holy priest, tankadin, warrior).

Comment by Madbad

The term "silence" does not imply ones mouth being forced closed, but rather the inability to cast magic.

Comment by Arrei

And consider for a moment how a "silence" effect stops you from casting magic? It makes so when you try and recite your incantations, no sound comes out. So a warrior's shout would be nullified, as well.

And of course the post this was replying to is gone now.

Comment by Siniroth

Well no, it implies not being able to make sounds, ostensibly casting spells requires an incantation, ergo you can't cast anything if you can't say anything.

Comment by Xarlequin

The above strategy worked wonders for us. Except we didnt bother to cc the adds. What we did was simply killing every single wave of add, prioritizing the officer. We had pretty low dps, so I think we ended up with 5 or 6 waves, but we could've gone on for longer.

Comment by fratzi

every dps has to interrupt the add-heal and -10% heal debuff on boss = achievement and easy kill

did it without priest

Comment by Hoddie

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Comment by rhotov

There's a way of glitching it, which make it freeloot. Maybe it'll get hotfixed in next patch.

Comment by Dradee

After many wipes on this boss, we made a special tactic for this. The group consisted of a protection paladin, destruction warlock, elemental shaman, assassination rogue and holy priest, me being the priest.

What we did was that we cleared the way, which you wouldn't normally use to get to the boss, behind Silverlaine. We let the warlock and shaman stand outside, in the open area, while the paladin, rogue and I (priest) ran to the boss. I stood a little away from the boss room.The paladin pulled from range, the rogue used Tricks and Crippling Poison on the adds, while he AoE'd a bit to get the health of the boss down as much as possible. When the tank had pulled, I as a priest pulled him to me with "Life Grip", and we just ran to the warlock and shaman as fast as possible. I used Inner Will, the paladin may have specced into a running speed increase, and the rogue used Sprint.When we got to the two others, we nuked the boss without having much trouble with the adds. Of course we used Bloodlust, but it may have been possible without.

Of course, not everyone have so much runspeed increase and stuff, and it will not be a viable strategy for everyone, and Blizzard might fix it by letting the boss reset if he leaves the room, but I suggest you enjoy while it lasts.And yes, I love Wowhead's "Link" feature.

Comment by Mileena

This boss on Heroic is NOT impossible. He's tough.. but not impossible. I, being a Holy Pally, just healed him like 5 minutes ago, after a couple tries we got a nice strategy together tanking him in the nearby hallway. He's not fun, but he's definitely NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Just need to be on your toes.

Tank brings him to the bottom of the stairs in the hall, rest of the group hangs out on the other end. Burn down his 2 adds, switch to boss. When he summons 2 more, drop them, then go back to boss. Rinse/Repeat.

Healing it is a bit intense, kind of a nail-biter.. but definitely doable.

Comment by ThreepwoodPM

Last night we did this boss and got the achievement without any real CC.Bear druid tankenhance shamanmagepriest healsfrost dk with a blood offspec

Normally I would use more cc, but seeing how the mage ice cc is only 10 seconds, and sheep doesn't work on undead... we only had shackle as a viable cc.

I ended up pulling the boss back down the hallway before his chamber, around a corner and all the way to the second set of stairs. The DK, in his tanking spec and gear held the adds just outside the bosses room at the bottom of those stairs. Heals stood at the corner so that she could heal both the DK and I. When the DK became overwhelmed we used the mages 10 second cc to buy us time to finish the boss off.

The entire fight the adds were line of sight from the boss and therefore unable to buff/heal him.

You may find this strat useful in getting the achievement or just getting the boss down if you lack proper crowd control. We were just trying to kill him and were oblivious to the achievement until we received it.

Comment by shadowsonic32

Here is the strategy I and my group used :

We skipped it.

Comment by Paracite1233

dear friends of WoW

To kill the boss currently in WoW the only way I've found is to kite the boss out to the courtyard at the start with the specular horses (or what ever they're called) once you get him there he does not spawns adds and it then becomes an instant win

Comment by Urden

used two tanks. Pulled him to the room before the kitchen, and blew him up. the second tank, kept the adds around the corner, out of LOS.

/Flex

Comment by ThePettsoN

Do not work anymore :(

Comment by quthar

The adds now spawn right next to the boss if you pull him out of his room.

Comment by Benegesserit

This fight is pretty screwed up because the adds are undead. It ends up being either a comp based fight or a gear based fight (outgearing it to ignore adds won't come till the next tier or possibly at best heroic t11). Roots are not all that helpful because the biggest threat is their buffing of the boss. You either need something that completely disables undead or you deal with them.

The way the groups I ran that did not have UD CC was completely deal with both adds (kill) for the first two waves then lust and kill him (usually a close call).

Comment by KandyCane

My group didn't have much troubles with this fight, and got it down the second try after having had no idea what it was like on the first try.

As a Protection Paladin, I had specced in Glyph of Turn Evil, granting my fear an instant cast. Whenever the adds spawned, we would nuke the left one first, while I feared the right one, then finish it off afterwards.

Repeating this, the adds was easily dealt with, and we got the achievement without too much trouble.

If you're going with a guild, I'd advice bringing either a Paladin or Priest to crowd control one of the adds.

Comment by Leotard

Found that using an offtank worked best here.

Comment by yujia

Heroic version is hard, but can be done.

I found the key is heroism, better bring a shaman, mage or hunter.

Comment by Keile

Something I have discovered:

If you have a DK in the group, they can Dark Simulacrum "Forsaken Ability" off the trash mobs. This ability WORKS on the boss, and has a chance to reduce his overall hp by 40% or armor by 40%, both of which can make this fight a LOT simpler.

Comment by enjinn1

Strat still works fine, as of 5 minutes ago. We had the party stay in the court yard, while the druid(healer) ran in and aggro'd boss and dashed back.

Tank picked up boss and his two original adds in court yard. Burned down adds then boss.

Win.

Also got an achievement :P

Comment by narwaana

I find it wierd that so manny people consider this boss one of the hardest, The mechanics are simple:

-Fight him in the big room so that its easy to move out from the aoe

-Face boss away from the group.

-Move out of the ground aoe as fast as possible.

-Keep casters at a long distance from the adds.

-Focus dps on adds so they goes down as fast as possible.

-Repeat until hes dead.

Been there 4 times so far whit pug groups.Only time ive ever failed were When a healer got to close to a new add and got killed.

Comment by Mentrix

Has 2,900,000 health in heroic, so Unholy Empowerment heals 116,000HP.

Comment by Lupius

This fight can be trivialized by having a hunter/mage/rogue aggro the adds then resetting the fight. The adds will not respawn. We got the boss down to 30% before any adds joined the fight, so it's basically a tank and spank (with moving out of desecration).

Accidentally discovered it when I was typing to explain the fight and didn't hit enter. Feigned death right away and found out that the adds don't come back.

Need mages/rogues to confirm if they can do the same.

Update: Just did it again last night. Auto shot the add on the Wailing Guardsman on the right and feigned death. Both adds despawned.

Comment by Hoddie

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Comment by Sinizine

If you don't have viable CC this fight has some pretty high DPS requirements or a heroic healer.

However, just because you don't luck out into a group with ret paladins and priests doesn't mean you can't work out some CC. Generally with my guild we do this:

Kill the first adds, focus boss, keep him roughly where he spawns. The second set are CC'd. As a boomkin, I typhoon one of the adds back out into the hallway it spawned from and root it so it can't heal the boss because it's out of line of sight. Paladin tank I generally run with uses Turn Evil on the other add. Continued focus on boss. If we get third set, I simply go out in the hallway, grab aggro on the new guy, use my Nature's grasp so I have both mobs rooted (they don't hit that hard that a few hits would kill me). Other new add is killed or CC'd if we have some other method (had a holy pally last time so he used Turn Evil on it). So don't give up hope if you have some goofy group makeups that you think won't work well. Have never gotten a 4th set myself, as either the boss is dead by then or the healer can't keep up with the dots.

Comment by jaysquirrel

Still works, got the achi too <3

Comment by Vifor

“We choose to go there not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Chalange is everything, skipping is lame. The boss didn't beat u, u did it urself instead.

(btw, i downrated ur post because i believe this. Having a 29 rating on a post that practicaly say "this is how we did this: we didn't do it" is lame)

Comment by Lysimachia

The boss and the adds combined hit rather hard and I find that when I'm healing, if we lack cc I spend a lot of mana healing the tank through the intial pull. Using a timer while tanking both adds will save your healer some stress-related hair loss.

Comment by Korhallen

As of today, 12/28/10, he runs considerably faster (caught up to a DK in Unholy quite easily) and leashes if you manage to pull him far enough. Couldn't get him to the courtyard in multiple tries.

Comment by gtog

After you cleared to the room, and cleared the extras in this room, you have your healer and ranged dps go back to the corner as if going back to the dining room and wait there. The tank pulls the boss and runs back around the corner as if going to the dining room, but stops at the top of the round stairs. Still in view of the healer at the corner of the hallway. An offtank, or some other type of high agro class stands at the bottom of the room you just pulled from. This agro magnet needs to keep ALL mobs from getting down around the corner. Then, you just have your dps go full damage on the Commander. The healer should be healing the agro magnet down one hallway, and the tank down the other hallway.

Comment by clavarnway

I was able to setup a Warlock portal in the courtyard, inside the pen where the horses are kept. I was able to teleport to it from the room with Commander Springvale. The problem was that he leashed and reset en route to the courtyard. :(

Comment by Siton

Kiting still works as of 4/1-2011

Comment by Dorf

If you pull the boss, and kite him and the 2 adds you have when you start the fight back to the courtyard where you fought the 3 abomination mobs, and adds he summons will not follow you down there, trivialising the fight.

Please, + this up so people having a hard time with this fight can see this. This fight is very very tricky and this tactic works wonders.

Comment by Luxeternus

Everyone is talking about tactics.....dps, gear, and stuff like that....but how about from a healers point of view?No one?Me...i`am a holy pala.Dunno whats the problem...my heals or the tank gear cuz i didn`t manage to heal the tank full hp, not to mention the dps`ers.My i lvl is 345 so i don`t think is something wrong with my heals.I can heal pretty much any hc, but this boss hits way to hard.My tank had like 136k hp buffed.Is it ok?

Comment by Karocus

Not impossible to defeat boss in his chamber.

Kill officer and guardsman..then...

Human Fury Warrior, moved to the doorway (through which the adds appear). Tank held boss in corner but close to the door so the warrior could dps while keeping his eyes on the stairs. Warrior held Whirlwind and Cleave in reserve until adds appeared on the stairs...and hit them just before they reached the door. Whirlwind then cleave and the adds are aggro'ed and about done...AoE from party finishes them off. No need to even take your focus off the Commander.

Comment by 309blank

I just got him 10 minutes ago and he does NOT leash as of yet we rooted one add and feared the other one and then just kited him to the courtyard, no adds came( not even the ones he started out with). I think the friendly npcs near the second boss kill the adds that pass them by.

Comment by Museigen

Heroic:Had a little bit of trouble with this boss, but the above strategy worked. The real key is add management, and preventing their cast of unholy power. The one thing most people didn't mention is the fact that it adds an unholy power to springvale, on top of healing him. He's exactly like an unholy ret, at 3 unholy power he either stacks another 5% of your HP buff (Very bad) or does his giant frontal flame. The flame being the better choice, since it's avoidable unlike the buff. Also nobody really mentioned the range on his flame being the whole room, so if he turns towards you, you will have to run around him to get out of it. It's a very wide area of effect.

If you have someone who can routinely CC an undead add (Priest) CC one and kill the other, interrupting every unholy power then you're set. If you don't assign someone to interrupt the 2nd add while everyone burns AND interrupts the first add. Do this until 40% then use whatever short-term emergency CC you have and burn springvale hard. Save all CDs and hero for this phase. We had a mage use ring of frost, caught all the adds from both doorways. Repentance and I believe holy wrath works to stun them as they are undead. Hungering Cold from a frost DK, or even just silences like the giant moonkin solar light thingy.

We wiped a few times, then achievement-ed it with our healer ending at 40% mana remaining. Assign an interrupt to BOTH adds, burn one then the other. Cleave DPS the boss, at 40% health use your emergency CC's and silences and burn him down. Worked like a charm.

Comment by Medii

By pulling the boss back to the courtyard (a Rogue with sprint for example) the two adds won't respawn once killed, and the fight becomes trivial.

Also, the added size of the courtyard also makes it very easy for the healer and ranged dps to outrange his Shield of the Perfidious.

Comment by Medii

This strat still works perfectly, I (rogue) pulled him back to the courtyard using sprint, we killed the two adds and no more adds spawned. The added size of the courtyard also makes it very easy for the healer and ranged dps to outrange his Shield of the Perfidious.

Comment by Revrant

The issue is how incredibly busy this fight is, there's a lot of stuff happening all of the time and other players tend to get confused by all that's happening.

They even added something to make it even more taxing, the mechanics are sound, but just roll back the plethora of crap being hurled at you every few seconds, Blizz, the need for easy on hand no resource silencing is an issue as well, not all classes have it, I as a tank certainly don't by design.

Comment by Avardo

Crowd Control is definitely the key for this one, as mentioned a few times already. Smoothest run I've had so far consisted of the following :-

Prior to the pull the Hunter placed a Freezing Trap in the exit corridor, and both Hunter & Priest moved to the platform where Springvale stands, whilst the Tank pulls Springvale to the other side (This side-swap will become clear on the first wave of adds). WeKilled both starting adds straight after the pull, and then enjoyed a grace period with no adds to DPS Springvale, but saving on cooldowns/trinkets for now - This allowed for about 25% of his Health to be taken down.

When the first wave of adds are summoned, the add from the exit corridor froze itself on the Freezing Trap, and the Holy Priest had a clear view from the platform down the entrance corridor to shackle the other add before it even reaches the room. Once both adds were controlled, the Shaman case Bloodlust, and all other DPS Trinkets/Cooldowns were used. Boss was killed very smoothly without either CC expiring, and also hooked us the achievement.

True, it was a very ideal group, but classes can be swapped around and some skills improvised for similar effect!

Comment by dlbert2000

Comment by Pashark

At the moment this boss is a little bugged. U get the Achieve even if he accumulate stack on pull.

Comment by Hoticehunter

He gets a buff that increases his damage by 200% if dragged out of his room (aka Courtyard strat) as of 4.0.6.

Comment by Renathras

NOTE: This is as of patch 4.0.6, and it seems the courtyard strategy may no longer work.

I tanked this tonight (first ever Heroic dungeon, yay! Unfortunately for me, I was invited in by my guildie after their tank dropped. <_< So guess who DIDN'T get his first ever Valor Points... <_< But hey, I got experience and know I can tank Heroics! Anyways...)

This fight caused us some trouble.

First tried to fight him in the room, DPS didn't get the adds down (I was kiting him around the room slowly clockwise), and we wiped.

Second try, attempted to pull him to the courtyard because, apparently this was a previous strat. Do NOT do this. Apparently he has some kind of leash buff and will OWN your party, hardcore. The name is something like "Separation Anxiety", and buffs his damage by either 200% or 300%. Basically he one shot the Mage and 3 shot the Paly tank (me). ---Once again, 4.0.6---

So I devised a simple strategy, and it worked. Here it is:

1) The tank needs to pull the boss and his initial two adds to the doorway. Either one works, but we did the one we came in on (left when facing the boss.) I used Avenger shield to grab all 3, you other tanks do whatever works for you.

2) Have your healer and ranged DPS (ranged not as important, healer a MUST), get up on the "stage" you pull him from. This helps a lot because the adds spawn and come in through the doorways. Having the healer up on the stage gives the tank maximum reaction time to grab up the adds when they come in as well as giving the healer a good clear view of the battlefield.

3) The tank will keep the boss turned away from the party at all times. This is because of the flame shield move where he shoots a cone of flame in front of him. ONCE HE STARTS IT, he seems rooted to the spot, so the tank may simply walk through the boss to get behind him, wait out the flames, then back through to get back into position (turning the boss away from the party.)

4) When the boss drops desecration, simply move across the room to the OTHER doorway. This again allows you maximum time to catch any incoming adds as they spawn and run in. Keep in mind, the adds are almost ALWAYS immediately after your healer. As tank, pick them up pronto. A simple taunt usually works if you can get them into your AOE range.

Rinse and repeat.

Make sure to stress to your DPS that the ADDS, are the number one concern. I wasn't sure from the fight, but from reading here it's their healing that causes the problem (and caused our first wipe.)

We were able to easily beat the enrage with a 13k Druid, and 8k Mage and Shaman doing dps, so that wasn't a problem.

I can't say that this is the best way or not, but I thought it up on the spot and we used it successfully, so if the kiting to courtyard no longer works and you're having trouble just kiting him around the room, give the door-to-door method a try. Worked for us and we were a fail tank and some scrub DPS. I also think my healer was in PvP gear, but he was an ace with his abilities, so it all worked out. ^_^

EDIT: Entry level gear and we managed it (Note: The other fights were all far FAR easier. -shrug-)

Comment by Eldente

With a balance druid's glyphedSolar Beam, this fight becomes much, much easier. Just round up the adds at the tank, hit Solar Beam, burn the adds, and continue DPSing the boss. At the second adds, you have to watch their casts for about 10-15 seconds (they seldom cast Unholy Empowerment that early), then hit Solar Beam as soon as it goes off CD. 15 seconds should be enough to finish off the boss even without touching the adds, assuming he never healed.

Comment by Kgfaith

I recently found out that If you take the boss out of his room (which means if u kill him in court yard or in hallway), he deal more damage and ur healer won't b able to keep up with the damage. The damage is around 100% more, though I m just guessing. I tried to kill him outside his room, once in court yard, once in hall way. Both attempt fail coz two healers healing couldn't keep up. So I finally decided to kill him in his room and we succesfully killed him on first attempt.

Comment by ricochett2

He will auto enrage if you try the courtyard method. You will die and it will not be amusing. Had a tank drop on me last night because he thought I was a bad healer.

Comment by sibicle

As of 4.0.6, it seems the "fight in the courtyard" trick has been...if not removed, then at least made very impractical. My group pulled him into the courtyard as usual, killed the adds, then turned our attentions the boss, at which point the tank died due to an unhealable amount of damage. Upon ressing, the designated "boss kiter" noticed that the adds had not respawned. This time, after pulling the boss into the courtyard, we noticed a debuff called Seperation Anxiety, which was clearly leading to the tank's swift demise. On our final, successful attempt, we pulled the boss, sans adds, in the room the "old school" way (so 2011, I know). His guards didn't spawn immediately, and it took until about 20% before another set made their appearance.

TL; DR - It's no longer possible to kill the Commander in the courtyard, however the adds spawn quite a bit slower than they used to so it's not a problem.

Comment by korrosive

So as of patch 4.06, he can no longer be tanked away from his adds, else he gets a 200% Buff to damage with will pretty much wipe any group. GG bliz, GG

Comment by omber

As of 4.0.6a it is not advisable to pull Commander Springvale out of his room in SFK. A common strategy we used was to root the Officer than have our druid run out of the keep and into the courtyard where we had more room to work and the adds would not come.

This has now been fixed. Pulling the boss out of his room gives him a 200% damage buff (guy seriously hits like a truck with it) and will make him reset aggro randomly.

Comment by Jokulhaup

Comment by TriXaM

Even though the tooltip for Desecration says that it reduces movement speed AND deals damage, I have yet to see it deal any damage to me as Tank. This is after numerous completions of the encounter and checking Damage Taken in Recount every time. So unless this spell somehow buffs incoming damage (I've yet to experience this) it operates merely as a slow, which makes getting out of Shield of the Perfidious as Tank slightly more challenging, but not a big deal at all.

That said, this encounter is made a bit easier by ignoring Desecration, hence reducing a lot of the movement which causes DPS and healers to get hit by Shield of the Perfidious whilst repositioning the boss. Just tank him in one place (doorway normally makes best for me) and ensure everyone stays behind boss. Pull adds to yourself every time and have interrupt duties delegated beforehand for the adds and the fight becomes much simpler.

Comment by jasonfahy

Best heroic tanking technique I've tried so far:

Ranged run up on the platform where Springvale starts out; they can stand there the whole fight without moving, so the low ceiling + camera problems don't trouble them so much. Melee will be between the two doorways the whole fight, shifting from one side to the other to avoid Desecration.

Whichever side you're on, stand near the doorway with the boss facing out the door. Three reasons: one of the adds will come in that doorway and walk into your AoE, when Springvale does his Cone of Fiery Megadeath it won't hit anybody except you, and you'll be facing the right way to see the opposite door and grab add #2 when it charges in.

DPS interrupt and kill the adds. It hurts to shift off the boss, but get it done or the adds' heals will beat you.

Comment by Gandazar

The short version:

If you have two people with a decent interrupt (10 second CD or less), simply assign one of them to the "yellow adds" and one to the "gray adds" (one of those people can be the tank). That person is responsible for interrupting unholy empowerment on "his" adds (ignore forsaken ability, it's much easier to deal with). Don't even wait for them to walk into the room, start hitting (and, more importantly, interrupting) them as soon as they spawn in the doorways. I think the yellow adds always come from the entrance and the gray adds always come from the exit. If the tank stands near one doorway (facing in), one of the adds will be caught easily, which leaves his taunt available for the other add. If you only have one "interrupter" available, assign that person to one of the adds (ex., the yellow one) and tell everyone else to nuke the other add.

Example:

If you have a shaman and a paladin tank, you're set. Between rebuke, hammer of justice, holy wrath, avenger's shield and wind shear, there's no excuse to let the adds cast unholy empowerment a single time. In fact, a paladin tank could conceivably do all the interrupts, but constant target switching / monitoring can be tricky.

As long as you manage to avoid unholy empowerment, it becomes a simple "don't stand in the AoE" fight.

Comment by Zarrek

Did they buff/bug this fight?

We were doing H SFK the other night and the adds seemed to spawn at warp speed, even with a combined 51k dps.

We finally beat him with 2x arcane mages for ultra burst.

Pride I guess.

Comment by cybele7

Can't even tell you how easy the cc made the achievement! Thanks!

In case it matters we cc'd the guardsmen who always comes out of the right door with a hunter trap and used counterspell on the officer who only had the chance to cast once before he was dead.

Comment by Ardred

Does anyone know what the armor he is wearing is called.. the 4.0.3 gear i mean

Comment by Superkid3112

All your armor are belong to me!

Comment by Blackbeardswe

i want his shield, the one he carries (in cataclym ofc).

Comment by love45acp

Man. I have pulled out every trick I know to try to solo this fight. And I can't.

Item level 511 shadow priest: I can get Springvale to around 25% by keeping up DoTs and CC'ing adds with Void Tendrils, but he just overpowers me with Desecration, and I'm sunk when the second round of adds show up. I'm going to skip him for now, but any advice would be welcome!

Comment by MABGamer6407

By what I read, he use's the Stygian Buckler. http://www.wowhead.com/item=23238#comments A No longer obtainable Shield that dropped from lv 60 Naxx. So in a way he is unique as I don't think any other Npc use's this Shield.

Commander Springvale

Once commander of Baron Silverlaine's personal guard, Springvale's ghost now haunts the morbid keep of Shadowfang Keep. He is the instance's third boss, ordering the spirits of the dead into military formation as he did in life.

Heroic Strategy

Springvale will pull with two adds - a Tormented Officer and a Wailing Guardsman. Frequently during the fight, Springvale will call for aid, summoning another pair of the same adds.

If you can CC undead enemies (Freezing Trap, Shackle Undead, Repentance), use that on the Wailing Guardsman. Nuke the Tormented Officer, then switch to the Guardsman, then go back to the boss. Both adds have Unholy Empowerment, which not only heals the boss, but grants him a charge of , which he can use to cast powerful abilities - interrupt this if you can.

Springvale himself will cast Desecration, which you need to get out of quickly. He will also generate Unholy Power on his own through Malefic Strike, so you can't avoid his nastiest spells completely.

If - when - he reaches 3 Unholy Power, Springvale will cast either the frontal AoE , or a single-target DoT Word of Shame. As a healer or DPS, try to always stay behind the commander.

Guides

Related

Tooltips and dungeon journal reflect ability values for one encounter version. Please refer to "Effect" section on spell pages to see values for all raid sizes and difficulties.

Malefic Strike
– Commander Springvale slashes at his main target, instantly dealing 100% of his normal Physical melee damage and generating a charge of Unholy Power he can then use for other abilities.

Shield of the Perfidious
– When Commander Springvale has three charges of Unholy Power, he consumes the charges and unleashes the power from his shield. Shield of the Perfidious deals 142 to 158 Shadow damage every 0.5 seconds in a narrow 25 degree cone in front of Springvale for 3 sec.

In Heroic Difficulty, the cone expands to 150 degrees.

Desecration
– Commander Springvale desecrates the ground in a 6 yard radius under a random player. All players standing in this defiled ground have their movement speed decreased by 50% and take 72 to 77 Shadow damage every 1.5 seconds.

Word of Shame
– When Commander Springvale has three charges of Unholy Power, he can consume the charges and cast this spell on a random enemy player. Word of Shame deals 5% of a player's maximum health as Shadow damage every 3 seconds. The effect lasts until either the targeted player or Commander Springvale dies.

Wailing Guardsman
– Commander Springvale starts with a Wailing Guardsman and Tormented Officer next to him, and periodically two more will enter the fray.

Unholy Empowerment
– A Wailing Guardsman attempts to empower Commander Springvale. If the spell is successfully cast, Commander Springvale is healed for 4% of his maximum health and gains one charge of Unholy Power.

Screams of the Past
– The Wailing Guardman emits a terrible scream, interrupting nearby enemy spellcasting within 0 yards. Interrupted enemies cannot cast spells of the same spell school for 2 sec.

Mortal Strike
– The Wailing Guardsman instantly attacks his enemy, inflicting 120% of their normal weapon damage and leaving the enemy wounded. This mortal wound reduces the effectiveness of any healing on the target by 25%.

Tormented Officer
– Commander Springvale starts with a Wailing Guardsman and Tormented Officer next to him, and periodically two more will enter the fray.

Unholy Empowerment
– A Tormented Officer attempts to empower Commander Springvale. If the spell is successfully cast, Commander Springvale is healed for 4% of his maximum health and gains one charge of Unholy Power.

Shield Wall
– When a Tormented Officer is below 20% health, he will raise his shield defensively. This reduces all damage taken by 75% for 10 sec.

Forsaken Ability
– The Tormented Officer curses an enemy target for 30 sec. While the curse is on the enemy, every 10 seconds an additional random curse is applied. The additional curses lasts 10 sec., and will reduce by 20% one of the following: armor, damage dealt, healing dealt, maximum health, or movement speed.